Basics

Dx2 Shin Megami Tensei Liberation is a turn-based JRPG with gacha elements (if you don’t know what gacha is, think about it like a toy capsule vending machine) developed by Sega for mobile devices. In this game you summon various deities and mythological creatures as demons of various rarities, and use them to progress in the game by fighting other demons in classic turn-based combat.

Your team is composed of a Liberator and four demons. Every demon has different stats and skills that determine how powerful they are. The main objective of the game is creating different parties of powerful demons to complete all the game’s content, and since Dx2 Shin Megami Tensei Liberation has PvP (also where gems as a F2P comes from), you'll be motivated to build better demons and party compositions.

Since this is a Beginner’s Guide, don’t worry if you don’t get some terms at first glance; the game will introduce you to new concepts at a steady rate! You probably don’t know now what it means to Awaken a demon, but as soon as the game explains this and other stuff to you those sections will become more clear!

Liberators

You can see the Liberator as the party leader that boosts your demons’ abilities in unique ways, and it’s not limited to the Main Character you start the game with; as you progress in the game you will unlock more characters to use as your Liberator.

Liberators level up and can be upgraded with different skills, but don’t worry since at max level you will be able to unlock every skill available for them; with that in mind you should prioritize the more useful skills. Also every Liberator has a quest chain unlocked by different criteria that, when completed, will raise their level cap to 50 and grant them new skills!

Every Liberator has different abilities, so it is wise to know in what aspects they can be useful:

Main Character: He is pretty balanced overall. His true strength lies on his ability to increase the exp your party members gain up to a +35% so he is best used in leveling quests

Megakin: His best traits come from his demon talking skills, so use him if you need to recruit more demons!

Eileen: Her personality translates well into her usefulness, because her hunger for money will get you more Macca (in-game money) and item drops. Great to use in farming!

Templar Dragon: Boosts the effects of the demon skills Charge and Concentrate, also makes healing easier by boosting healing skills and allowing you to use items without much of a penalty

Chalk Eater: If you’re good at hitting your enemies’ weaknesses you will love this guy, since he adds the chance to buff your party for every weakness exploited, and even can get you more turns in combat

Kangaroo Boxer: This guy hits hard and hits fast. If for some reason your enemy would attack first, this guy can make you go first instead; and if you go first he boosts your demons’ critical chance. Also he has this nice skill that makes your demons deal more damage for every enemy you’ve killed

Meat Balloon: He is built for defensive play. Boosts your demons for every party member you lose, and even has a chance to revive your last standing demon if your party died

Shionyan: She’s great to play if you enjoy inflicting status ailments on your opponents

Demons

Your demons are your main asset, as they will do all the fighting in this game. You should build as many demons as you can to make use of different party setups for content. At first, you can check the Tier List to know which demons are worth your time, but once you learn how to build demons, you can make almost anything work.

You can get different demons by: talking with them and asking them to join you in battle, taking part in the gacha system by spending Gems (the game’s premium currency) or pulling Summon Files, or by fusing demons you already have to create a new demon.

Negotiations

Whenever you’re in battle, there's a chance that one of the opposing demons will have a “Talk” bubble above their heads; this allows you to talk to them, where you'll negotiate, and if successful, they'll join your team!

Don’t stress too much about negotiation though. The negotiation answers will usually be based on their personality, and it's easy to pick up with experience. At the end of almost every negotiation, the demon will ask for an item, so make sure it isn’t a rare item what you’re giving them. If you're negotiation with a rare demon, make use of a Demon Contract! You'll find a lot of them in Aura Gate.

Summoning

So, there are multiple types of Summoning: Fragment Summoning, Normal Summoning, Superior Summoning, Special Summoning, Hell Summoning, Ultimate Summoning, Absolute Summoning and Trial Featured Summoning… and that’s a lot to grasp as a beginner, so let’s start with the basics first.

Normal Summon can pull demons of 1★ to 3★ rarity with a Clear (Common) archetype.

Superior Summons can pull demons of 3★ to 5★ rarity with a Red/Yellow/Teal/Purple (Aragami/Protector/Elementalist/Psychic) archetype.

Special Summons can pull demons of 4★ rarity with a Red/Yellow/Teal/Purple (Aragami/Protector/Elementalist/Psychic) archetype.

Fragment Summons can pull a specific demon with a Clear (Common) archetype.

Hell Summons can pull demons of 3★ to 5★ rarity with a Clear (Common) archetype.

Ultimate Summons can pull demons of 4★ to 5★ rarity with a Red/Yellow/Teal/Purple (Aragami/Protector/Elementalist/Psychic) archetype. It's 5% for a 5★ and 95% for a 4★,

Absolute Summons make use of Parchments (an item you get when you pull on Trial Featured Summons) to pull a demon of 5★ rarity with a Red/Yellow/Teal/Purple (Aragami/Protector/Elementalist/Psychic) archetype.

Trial Featured Summons can pull demons of 3★ to 5★ rarity with a Red/Yellow/Teal/Purple (Aragami/Protector/Elementalist/Psychic) archetype, with a rate up on demons in this banner. This can only be pulled once as a F2P, and drops parchments. To unlock it for a longer time, you'll have to buy anything in the shop.

The Gacha Rates (the odds of pulling demons) are the following: 0.5% for a 5★, 5% for a 4★, and 94.5% for a 3★

Yes, it looks depressing, but all you really need as a beginner are different archetypes; getting a 4★ or 5★ is just a bonus.

Fusion

Fusing demons will be your most used method of getting better demons. It's really simple, you just need two demons with at least one of them being a Common archetype and some Magnetite (another in-game currency) and you'll be able to fuse yourself a new demon. That’s what makes this game different from most other Gachas; you can just simple grind your way to higher rarity demons instead of spending hundreds of dollars trying to pull one.

You can use the Fusion Calculator @ @ http://fusion.dx2wiki.com/ to know what demon combination will get you the demon you want, and it is highly recommended because learning the fusion table for any Shin Megami Tensei game is a nightmare.

Besides rarity, demons have grades, and that determines how they behave in fusion (as in what combination of demons you need to get another; higher grade demons fuse into high grades) and also the player level determines which fusions are available:

Player Level

Unlocked Fusion Grade

10

40 ~ 50

20

51 ~ 60

30

61 ~ 70

40

71 ~ 80

45

81 ~ 85

50

86 ~ 90

55

91 ~ 95

60

96 ~ 99

Fusing 4/5★ requires a lot of Magnetite, and Magnetite is a scarce resource so be careful with which 4/5★ you fuse as it’ll be a long-term investment.

Progression

There is no 'order' that things must be done with, you can do things in whatever order you'd like. However, it's recommended to complete content on the training missions at the home page because it provides freebies such as Macca, Magnetite, and Gems.

Also, make an Elementalist (Teal) Ose with the Elementalist (Teal) Setanta that you got in the Summoning Tutorial because that demon will carry you hard. There's multiple ways to do this @ http://fusion.dx2wiki.com/ but the most common way is to:

To get towards late game, we need to make our demons stronger. Several things can be done to make our demons stronger, which are (in order of priority):

Leveling

Equipping Brands

Transferring Skills

Awakening

Evolving

Leveling

All PvE content grants your account, your Liberator and your demons, experience points. EXP makes you level up, standard videogame logic. You could simply advance in Story Mode, farm in Demon Buster or advance in Aura Gate and get experience to level up, but there is a more efficient way if you just want to get stronger quickly.

Every Story Chapter has a Leveling Quest. Leveling Quest not only let you bring two parties (that means two Liberators and 8 demons, although they won’t fight at the same time) to level them up, but will give you A LOT more EXP than a regular quest.

EXP/Stamina Leveling Quest Efficiency Table

Leveling Quest

Stamina

Exp

Exp/Stamina

Exp/Stamina (1/2 Stamina)

Chapter 1(NORMAL)

2

66

33

66

Chapter 1(HARD)

3

182

60.6

182

Chapter 1(HELL)

4

342

85.5

171

Chapter 2(NORMAL)

3

133

44.3

133

Chapter 2(HARD)

4

301

75.2

150.5

Chapter 2(HELL)

5

410

82

205

Chapter 3(NORMAL)

4

234

58.5

117

Chapter 3(HARD)

5

356

71.2

178

Chapter 3(HELL)

6

499

83.1

166.3

Chapter 4(NORMAL)

5

336

67.2

168

Chapter 4(HARD)

6

465

77.5

155

Chapter 4(HELL)

7

585

83

195

Chapter 5(NORMAL)

6

474

79

158

Chapter 5(HARD)

7

573

81.8

191

Chapter 5(HELL)

8

716

89.5

179

Chapter 6(NORMAL)

7

576

82.3

192

Chapter 6(HARD)

8

691

86.4

172.7

Chapter 6(HELL)

9

840

93.3

210

Chapter 7(NORMAL)

8

638

79.7

159.4

Chapter 7(HARD)

9

765

85

191.25

Chapter 7(HELL)

10

957

95.7

191

Chapter 7a(NORMAL)

8

693

86.6

173.2

Chapter 7a(HARD)

9

831

92.3

207.7

Chapter 7a(HELL)

10

1039

103.9

207.8

In terms of Exp/Stamina efficiency, Chapter 7a HELL difficulty Leveling Quest is the best. Chapter 1 HELL difficulty is less efficient, but is much easier to farm since your only enemies are Slimes. For half-stamina events, Chapter 6 HELL difficulty is the most efficient, with Chapter 7a HELL difficulty at a close second. Chapter 1 HARD is a good alternative for half-stamina events if your team isn't ready for the higher chapters.

Now, don’t throw aside Leveling Quests that aren’t as efficient because on top of the EXP they also work great to recruit demons, so maybe you need some from Chapter 3, 4 or 5 Leveling Quests.

To maximize the amount of EXP you get, bring your Main Character as the Liberator of one of the groups, as they have a passive skill to increase EXP. You will also want to always bring a Kanbari demon in both parties (2★ demon that is fused in multi-fusion), as it contain a skill to increase exp gain.

Steps to fuse a Kanbari:

First, make sure you already completed Chapter 3-5

Collect 5 Slimes in Chapter 1’s Leveling Quest

Collect 2 Melchoms and 1 Preta in Chapter 2’s Leveling Quest

Collect 1 Nekomata and 1 Sandman in Chapter 3’s Leveling Quest

Fuse Bicorn with Slime x Nekomata

Fuse Inugami with Bicorn x Slime

Fuse 2 Kurama Tengu with Slime x Melchom

Fuse Yomotsu-Shikome with Preta x Kurama Tengu

Fuse 1 Koppa Tengu with Slime x Sandman

Multi-Fuse Kanbari

Brands

Brands are items that raise the stats of a demon and can be equipped in 5 slots: Head, Right Arm, Left Arm, Body, and Legs. They come in 1~6★ rarities and with higher rarity, they contain more stats and upgrade potential. When multiple of the same type are equipped, a set effect (all of which are rated below) such as +25% HP can be also applied to a demon.

Duplicate sets can apply the effect multiple times on the same demon.

Brand stats matter more than the rarity, so make sure the stats are what you want before fully committing to upgrading it. You will quickly run out of Macca if you try to max upgrade every Brand. For that reason it is important to know what stats can a Brand have.

Head Brands can only have flat HP as their main stat

Body Brands can only have flat Physical or Magical Defense as their main stat

Right Arm Brands can have HP, Physical Attack, Physical Defense, Magical Attack, Magical Defense, Critical, Accuracy and Evasion, both flat and percentual, as their main stat

Left Arm Brands can have HP, Physical Attack, Physical Defense, Magical Attack, Magical Defense, Ailment Infliction and Ailment Resistance, both flat and percentual, as their main stat

Secondary stats are all flat, and any piece can have HP, Physical Attack, Physical Defense, Magical Attack and Magical Defense as their secondary stat.

Tertiary stats are random, and anything can be on any Brand. Tertiaries are upgraded on Brand levels 3, 6 and 9; if a brand already comes with tertiary stats, instead of adding another tertiary at those level one of those stats will go up.

Brands of Sin quests at Demon Buster is the easiest place to farm Brands, and they are available all of the time. The other option is Aura Gate past Floor 40+. Upgrading 3★ or higher Brands is called Advanced Enhancement.

Don't know which Brands to equip your demons with? Here are some example setups to help you get started:

Physical Attackers

Main Set Bonus: Divine/War + Ward/Aim

Desired Stats: Physical Accuracy %, Physical Atk %, Critical %

Magical Attackers

Main Set Bonus: Divine/Spell + Ward

Desired Stats: Magical Atk %, Magical/Physical Def %

Healers

Main Set Bonus: Divine/Life + Heal/Ward

Desired Stats: Healing Amount %, HP %, Magical Atk %

Supporters

Main Set Bonus: Divine + Ward/Dodge

Desired Stats: HP %, Magical/Physical Atk %

Debuffers

Main Set Bonus: Sick/Life + Ward

Desired Stats: Ailment Infliction %, HP%, Magical/Physical Def %

Skill Transfer

Skill transfer allows a demon to learn a skill from another demon, increasing its combat options and creating powerful combinations. To transfer a skill, the demon that receives the skill needs skill points, and you need another demon with the skill you want to transfer. Skill points are per-demon, and they are acquired by sacrificing other demons and special items in Pandemonium. Possible sacrifices are:

A demon soul (obtained from encounters in the Aura Gate) of the same demon. (1 skill point)

A Yasaka Magatama item (1 to 6 skill points, number of points equal to the item’s Stars) Don’t use your Yasaka Magatama on 3★ or lower rarity demons as duplicates or the same rarity can easily be fused or pulled from the gacha for skill points!

Actually transferring skills requires a demon with the skill to be sacrificed, the donor. The donor may only transfer certain skills, marked with a DNA tag in their description. This is always the first skill, any skills received by transfer, and the bonus skill a Summoned demon receives. The UI shows you all skills that can be transferred to the particular demon, including skill point price, and will let you pick from demons in your stock that can provide that skills. Skill points and transferred skills are lost when fusing. The game will warn you if you are about to sacrifice a demon that qualifies. Skills are not lost when evolving, so feel free to power up! Once you have transferred a skill, you can replace it with another transferred skill using the same process. If you transfer the same skill again, the skill will level up and become more powerful!

A list of recommended transferable skills and their sources can be found here.

Awakening and Archetypes

Awakening a demon unlocks their Archetype Skill (which varies depending on the demon and its archetype - that's the colour on the demon) and slightly increases their stats. Every demon requires Small, Medium, or Large Aether of specific type(s) to awaken them. You can also use Aether Crystals to instantaneously Awaken a demon, but don't use an Aether Crystal on 3★ or lower rarity demons! Even 4★ demons are relatively easy to awaken, so save them for 5★ if possible.

Strange Signal quests grant the Aether of varying quality depending on difficulty required for Awakening a demon. Every Strange Signal quest will drop only one type of Aether, and Strange Signal quest availability rotates based on the day, with weekends hosting multiple at a time.

Strange Signal Schedule

Sunday - Light (Yellow) Aether

Monday - Dark (Purple) Aether

Tuesday - Neutral (Green) Aether

Wednesday- Lawful (Blue) Aether

Thursday - Chaotic (Red) Aether

Friday - Neutral/Light/Dark Aether

Saturday - Neutral/Lawful/Chaotic Aether

Evolving

Evolving a demon resets their level back to 1, but grants them an increased level cap and slightly increased base stats as their rarity will increase. To evolve a demon you need to sacrifice demons with the same actual rarity (unlike with skill points where you needed to sacrifice demons with the same base rarity - if you have a 4★ Pixie, which is a base 1★ demon, and want to evolve her to 5★ you need to sacrifice demons with 4★ rarity) or use a Yama Mirror, an item that can substitute a sacrifice; Yama Mirrors come with different rarities so you need a 2★ Yama Mirror to evolve a 2★ demon, for example.

You should not fuse 3/4/5★s for evolve fodder. The recommended way to evolve is by using Yama Mirrors, base 2★s, or useless gacha 3★s to save Magnetite.

Evolving a demon resets their level back to 1, but grants them an increased level cap and slightly increased base stats as their rarity will increase.

Evolution Example (3★ => 5★)

Level 3x 2★ to level 30.

Evolve 3x 2★ to 3★.

Sacrifice these evolved 2★ to my 3★ Ose. Ose is now 4★.

Level 16x 2★ to level 30.

Evolve 16x 2★ to 3★.

Level 4x evolved 2★ to level 35.

Evolve 4x 2★ again to 4★ rarity (sacrificing the other 12 evolved 2★).

Sacrifice these double-evolved 2★ to my 4★ Ose. Ose is now 5★.

Max level for each rarity is

1★ = 25

2★ = 30

3★ = 35

4★ = 40

5★ = 45

6★ = 50

Kanbari Evolution

Unfortunately, mirrors are limited, and the Magnetite costs to fuse high-star demons makes using them as evolution fodder painful. The solution to this is to use Kanbari as fodder.

The reasoning for this is that Kanbari provides experience bonuses, and as such will constantly be on your leveling teams, and therefore will be constantly gaining XP. Since he will constantly be gaining XP, he will inevitably reach the level cap, and then will be wasting XP until evolved or replaced. Evolving him enough allows him to attain high rarity. Eventually, he can become a 5★, and then he can act as fodder for your best demons to evolve to 6★.

You may be wondering what will be used as fodder for Kanbari to evolve to higher stars, but the answer goes right back to the previous paragraph: more Kanbaris. For the first evolution, from 2★ to 3★, the costs are low enough that you can simply use an easy-to-fuse 2★ as fodder for those Kanbaris (Kurama Tengu is good, requiring only Slime and Melchom from Chapters 1 and 2, as are Pisacas and Shikomes from Chapter 5), but for the evolutions from 3★ to 4★ and from 4★ to 5★, other Kanbaris will be used.

This does create the question of where additional Kanbaris will be sourced, but thankfully this is simple as well. The most obvious way is to use the same guide listed above on how to fuse Kanbari, and simply run those leveling quests while farming XP in order to get the demons needed for a Kanbari. The Compendium is an easier route, as farming Chapter 1 Hell's leveling quest will net you a large number of slimes, and the rest of the parts of a Kanbari can be summoned for a relatively low cost, but Karma is limited, and getting more outside of events is slow and inefficient, so it should only be used when you're really feeling lazy.

So, in essence, Kanbari is the quintessential evolution fodder for 4★s and 5★s, and he becomes that fodder by gathering XP from leveling quests and using other Kanbaris as lower-rarity evolution fodder.

Shops

There are several shops and several currencies to be aware of.

Gems Shop

Generally, you shouldn't use gems to purchase single items outside of the packs, as the packs have insanely great value. However, you can save 20k gems, and after spending any amount of $$$, a limited summoning pool will appear where you can get a random 5★ after summoning 200 times.

Below is a table of economic bundles. Any other items not listed below aren't worth it.

Get a guaranteed 4★ Herald/Divine. Worth it to get skill fodder / Sandalphon.

Purple Summon File x6

500 Gems

Once per day (for a week)

★★★☆☆

Purple archetype provides unique skills for demons and are usually very good.

Teal Summon File x6

500 Gems

Once per day (for a week)

★★★☆☆

Teal archetype usually covers up a weakness of a demon, sometimes even turning it into a Null/Repel/Drain.

Yellow Summon File x6

500 Gems

Once per day (for a week)

★★☆☆☆

Not a very good archetype on demons except for a select few.

Red Summon File x6

500 Gems

Once per day (for a week)

★☆☆☆☆

Not a very good archetype on demons except for a very select few.

Monster Dew x5

100 Gems

Once per week

?????

Depends on how much you value Stamina.

Tome of EXP (12h) x3

125 Gems

Once per week

?????

Depends on how much you value EXP.

Black Market

Macca becomes extremely valuable later in the game, so be careful with your spending.

Repel Mag, Repel Phys, and Revival Balm items should be your priority when looking at the market. If you find Brands with desired stats (+% Phys Atk for a War Brand as an example), those are also worth buying. The most desired brands inside of the market are Divine and Ward. This is because Ward Brands are universal, and Divine Brands can only be found inside Aura Gate.

Fame/PvP Shop

Purchase Magatama first.

Fame can be gotten by borrowing your friends' demons, helping out in battle, sending & receiving likes, and when your friends use your support demon.

PvP points can be gotten by defeating opponents in D2 Duel.

Rerolling

Gacha Rates: 1% for a 5★, 5% for a 4★, and 94% for a 3★

Rerolling for a 5★ isn’t recommended as the 0.5% rate will burn you out. You should, however, try to reroll for a high tier 4★ or the gacha exclusive White Rider using the 4★ ticket.

Steps to Reroll

Complete the tutorial until the summoning demonstration.

Go to the mailbox and claim the the 4★ ticket, gems and other tickets.

Pray to RNGesus.

If you are unhappy with your pulls clear data (or if rooted on Android, delete com.sega.d2megaten.v2.playerprefs.xml inside data/com.sega.d2megaten/shared_prefs) and repeat.

Aura Gate

Brand of Sin

Strange Signal

Eclipse

D2 Duel

Hell's Park

Useful Resources

These are some extra reading you can catch up on, such as our Fusion Calculator, an in-depth Tier List, and more!

Fusion Calculator

Want to fuse something but don't know how? Use the handy fusion calculator here: http://fusion.dx2wiki.com/
Please note that Red/Yellow/Purple/Teal archetypes can only be fused with a Clear archetype, while Clear archetypes can be fused with other Clear archetypes as well.